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Read Thread: Feeling dicouraged

Re: Feeling dicouraged
Board: Scouts Honor
Reply to: #941898 by Uncorny Acorns
Feb 15, 2017 3:00pm
Thread (disabled) Board
How old are the girls? I ask because my personal experience (Brownie through Senior, Ambassadors were not yet established) was that parents were very involved at the Brownie and Junior levels but started to thin out at the Cadette level as a lot of girls were no longer interested in scouts. By the time the troop made it to the Senior level, there was only four or five of us left, and really only two of us were active participants. At that point, the only mom who was involved was the troop leader who became less involved unless she wanted to participate in a specific event or activity as we had become nearly self-sufficient in our scouting activities.

Scouting is hard to carry on, especially as the girls and parents lose interest but I was always grateful for the mom who stuck it out with us few who still wanted to be a part of scouts. If I lived near you, I would totally take up a volunteer role for the troop....maybe you can recruit some reliable friends who want to be volunteers with the troop?
Re: Feeling dicouraged
Board: Scouts Honor
Reply to: #941927 by Johnsosaurus
Feb 15, 2017 6:09pm
Thread (disabled) Board
They are Cadettes and Seniors, mostly 8th graders about to graduate. I fully expected the kids to start losing interest, what I wasn't expecting was to feel like the parents were sabotaging their interest. They show excitement at meetings and plan things, and then the parents email out cancellations. I've suggested NOT taking it on themselves to cancel an event that they can't attend, but it doesn't seem to get through.

I'm trying to figure out how to make next year better, if we have enough girls who want to continue. We still need active parents, but we need them to read their emails and be aware of what's coming up so they aren't changing the plans at the last minute or taking up half our planning time arguing about whether something is feasible after it's mostly been planned. I wonder if a larger group would help disperse the pressure by having more parents rotate driving and chaperoning and supporting the planning portions or if it would just be more headache?
Re: Feeling dicouraged
Board: Scouts Honor
Reply to: #941933 by Uncorny Acorns
Feb 17, 2017 8:20am
Thread (disabled) Board
Hmm. Is it the majority of the parents that are causing issues or just a few? If it's just a few, maybe assign them smaller things within an event and leave the bigger event/activities to parents who are a bit more reliable. Also, maybe they don't check their email often and you should try phone calls or texts. This sounds like quite the frustrating situation :(
Re: Feeling dicouraged
Board: Scouts Honor
Reply to: #941898 by Uncorny Acorns
Feb 17, 2017 5:28pm
Thread (disabled) Board
This started happening with my troop when we were senior scouts (late 90's, my mom was our leader). Parents were less and less able to even help carpool, although some would still drop the girls off. For us, my junior/cadette troop ended up split between 3 schools as we got older (some still in middle school, and the rest of us split into 2 high schools depending on our neighborhood)....all of us also had band, student council, 4H, orchestra, cheer leading, sports, etc etc so for us that had a lot to do with availability as well. In the end, my mom would seek opportunities for us and put them on a calendar to share- and whoever could come would come and earn whatever was there to be earned. Luckily my council was providing classes and opportunities for older girls to sign up for. Our camping trip was planned mostly by us during our meeting (although my parents did all the shopping) and the last camping trip we did as a troop we actually met with a sister troop our age- we all planned the same location and agreed to meet but essentially made our own food plans (more or less) each troop leader planned a few activities but both troops participated- so some of the duties were split in that way.

In the end, my senior year of high school it was mostly me doing stuff on my own with maybe one or two others and I found myself volunteering my time with younger troops rather than my troop doing something all together.

I don't think that was any advice, but did want to respond to say, you're not alone. :)